Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - 3 Back From the Dead Horror Stories

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

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Talk to nice sleep. The blood squirts out of my father's neck. Its warmth on my hand, a sharp contrast to the cool night air. He makes a surprised, choking sound, and reaches back toward me. My eyes are wide, seeing what I've done thanks to the little bit of moonlight that filters through the pine trees we're standing under. I recall everything that led up to this, a rush of memories and emotions, mostly fear and desperation. My father has never been a good man. He's never even been what you probably

think of when the word father comes to mind, unless, of course, you've had a childhood like mine. I'm 17 years old, and I'm surprised I've survived this long. My earliest memory of my father is from when I was perhaps a year and a half old. I remember walking up to him where he sat in his recliner, the lurking presence in my life that I knew instinctively was supposed to protect me, and care for me, and loved me. The excitement I felt while walking on my chubby, wobbly legs was overwhelming, and I wanted to share it with him. I think it was my first time walking, but when I brought it up to my father years later, he insisted it wasn't. He was probably lying. I doubt he even remembered the incident. I walked up to him, arms out.

to keep my balance, giggling like the excited toddler I was. I grabbed at his legs, which extended down from his impossibly long body that was folded into his recliner. I laughed, leaning on his legs for balance, looking up into his face. His gaze was fixed on the television. He didn't even move his eyes down to me as he kicked out, launching my little body across the living room. I narrowly missed the coffee table, hitting my head on the carpet floor. My bawling brought my mother into the room, who scooped me up into her arms. The memory grows blurry here, disappearing in a haze of yelling while my parents fought. It was a sound I grew accustomed to over the years, although not one that I ever fully accepted to be normal.

As the years went on and I grew older, I realized that my father wasn't a person, not really. He didn't have the characteristics I associated with other people. He had no empathy, no remorse. He was full of indifference that sometimes morphed into hate, which often turned into violence. I knew that one day he would go too far, and I would have to do something about it. It was a realization I'd had when I was 13 or so. Now, four years later, it has finally happened.

And it all started with my dog, Dallas. My parents had agreed to get him for me three years earlier, for my 14th birthday. Dallas is a black lab, smart and loving and loyal, three traits that had always been lacking in dear old dad. Maybe that's why my dad decided to turn him from an inside dog to an outside dog for no apparent reason. Maybe he was jealous, or maybe he lacked any sort of logical reasoning at all. We'd been eating dinner about an hour ago when my father made the announcement. We're going to be keeping the dog outside from now on, he said, not using Dallas' name.

It was always just the dog to him. I froze with my fork halfway between plate and mouth. What? I said. Why? Dogs shouldn't be in the house. They're animals. They belong outside. After three years, I said. You suddenly decide this after three years of him living inside, sleeping in my room?

My father hadn't looked up from his plate, even when he'd first made the announcement. He finally looked up, bringing his vacant gaze to my face. This is not a discussion. I'll be putting him outside. after dinner, and there he'll stay. I looked to my mother for support, but I could see that she wasn't in any condition to join the fight.

The bruises on her neck were evidence enough for me. This wasn't the first time I wished I had a brother, someone to help me stand up to my dad, so it would be two against one, three against one on those increasingly rare occasions when my mother was feeling up to the task. But I didn't. It was just me.

My dad kept his promise, putting Dallas outside after dinner. We didn't have a fence around the backyard, and the woods our house backed up to went on for miles. So we strapped Dallas to the railing at the foot of the deck stairs. He didn't even bring his food and water dishes outside. I did that when I went to check on Dallas once my father was in his room. I took the dog for a walk, passing the two sawhorses, set up in the backyard. They supported a rusty saw and two rotting two by fours. My dad had

bought to repair a portion of the deck, but had never finished. We walked for an hour around the dark neighborhood, and I spoke to Dallas, trying to make him understand. I vented my frustration to him, and he glanced up at me every so often, ever the patient listener. By the time we got back to the house, I decided to wait until my father went to sleep, and then planned to sneak Dallas inside to my room. But I'd never got the chance. When he'd been left outside alone for about 45 minutes, Dallas started to bark.

It was a let me in, bark. I sat in my room and listened to him for a little while, staring up at the ceiling, stoking the anger I felt toward my father. A pained yell got me moving, rushing out of my room to investigate. I came to the top of the deck stairs just in time to see my dad punched Dallas in the head. My dog yelped again, and this seemed to enrage my father

further. His shoulders bunched up, his fists clenching as he walked over to the edge of the yard, grabbing a stick from the ground. He stalked back over to Dallas. I stood on the deck, frozen with fear, wondering if this would be the time I did something to stop him. My heart beat wildly, and my breathing became shallow. My father raised the stick, but before he swung it down, I yelled for him to stop. He turned his head. His right arm still raised and spoke in a growl. Go back inside.

Dallas looked up at the club, his eyes wide with fear, tail tucked between them. I launched myself down the stairs. My father turned toward me, a small smile in his face. But that smile faltered when he realized that I wasn't going to stop. I ran into him with my shoulder, sending him back. backpedaling until he fell and landed on his butt in the yard. Rage clouded his features, making his eyes grow into bottomless pits. His mouth convulsed and his nostrils flared.

He got to his feet, the club still in his hand, and ran toward me without a word. I knew he meant to kill me. As I started to run, I noticed the rusty saw lying across the two-warped two-by-fours on the sawhorses. Running past, I grabbed the saw and headed into the woods. my father's footsteps loud behind me. It didn't take me long to increase the distance between us. An old college football injury slowed him down, but I could still hear him behind me.

There was a clump of bushes up ahead, and I ducked behind them, catching my breath. You're dead! He called out in a sweet voice that I'd only ever heard him use when he was truly angry. Where are you? He called, like we were playing hide-and-seek. I watched him through the bushes as he stomped around, searching.

I held the saw down by my right thigh. After a few minutes, he stopped searching, and he started laughing. Fine, he called. When you come home, I'll be waiting, but your dog and your mother won't be. He turned to head back to the house, and I knew he meant to make good on his threat. If I let him go, he'd kill them both. Wait! I said, stepping out.

out of the bushes. I'm here. He turned, that lifeless smile still on his face. He walked toward me at a casual pace. His club held out from his body. Listen, I said as he approached. I searched for words that would make everything all right. But deep down, I knew there were no words that could change my father's inherent nature. I started backing up as he got closer, unsure of what to do. He swung his club at me, but I saw it coming and ducked out of the way. He growled and swung again, hitting me in the shoulder, knocking me off balance. I fell to one knee and swung out with the saw, tearing through his jeans and knicking his leg. He paused, looking down at the wound as if in disbelief.

I tensed, preparing for what would come next. He raised the club in both hands and siked it down, but I jumped, rolling out of the way and coming up behind him. I swung the saw as hard as I could at the side of his neck as he straightened up to turn around. The rusty blade embedded itself there with a wet dunk. He moved slightly, causing the blade to come out a little. Blood squirted onto my hand, somehow making everything real. He made a choking sound, reaching back toward me. He moves again now, dropping his club and reaching up to the blade.

I yank it out, marveling at the amount of blood that follows. He puts his hand to the wound and turns around, looking at me with eyes that are filled with hate. The blood pours around his fingers, soaking his shirt. He reaches out to me, and I step back. Then I think better of it and step forward, kicking him in the stomach and sending him to the ground, much like he did to me so many years ago.

I watch him bleed out, waiting until he's dead, before I head back to the house to find a shovel and let Dallas back into the house. While I dig the hole next to my father's body, I think about how everything has led up to this. I picture a different life, a different childhood, one where my father was a pleasing, supportive presence,

instead of a dark shadow whose wrath I had to fear. I think about how nice it would be to work on a car, or talk about football, or discuss dating with my dad, how it would be to get a hug on my birthday and to hear the words, I love you, son. Words I'd never heard spoken by my father. I finished the dirty job just after midnight, and I creep back into the house.

My mother's habit was to lock herself in her office-turned bedroom after dinner, because that was when my father hit the bottle hardest. A wrong word could send him spiraling out of control. So I'm not surprised to find the house quiet. My mother none the wiser. I pack up my bicycle in my father's pickup truck and drive to a Walmart about five miles away. I parked the truck, leaving the keys in and the doors unlocked, hoping someone will steal it. I ride home, focusing on the expanding feeling of freedom in my stomach.

A burden has been lifted. I finally get to bed around 3 in the morning. My conscience is clear. And I fall asleep with no trouble. Dallas curled up on the floor next to my bed. A rumbling sound wakes me. It's still dark outside, and it takes me a moment to realize

that the rumbling is Dallas growling. I click on my small bedside lamp and see Dallas, his head down, and the fur on his back bristling. He's looking at my bedroom door, which opens slowly, silently. My father steps into the room,

coated in clumps of wet dirt and drying blood. I can see the wound in his neck clearly, but his eyes are shadowed as he steps closer. Dallas backs up whimpering. I sit up. Sure, I'm having a vivid nightmare. He lunges for me. As his cold hands wrap around my throat,

I look into his eyes. In them, I see hell. I love you, son. My father says, choking the life out of me and the worst part is I know he means it it's something else here now

something new from exclusively on Paramount Plus it's the series Stephen King calls scary as hell everything here is impossible but it's also real sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now

we're running out of time and we still don't know the rules don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch saving those children is how we all go home. From Binge All episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. I've never been a religious person. I mean, I was raised in a Christian household.

But by the time I was a teenager, the grasp of religion was fading fast. Heaven and hell, God and the devil. They seem to be just allegorical stories written by men thousands of years ago who knew that people needed some guidelines for life. Of course, like most people, I wondered what would happen when I died. The thought of a heaven was nice, but I just couldn't bring myself to believe it. The same thing with hell. But I got to see for myself what it was like to die and what was on the other side.

And unlike 99% of the population, I got to come back from it. It changed forever. I was 25 years old when I was taking. my nightly walk after dinner. My neighborhood was a quiet one, and it was a cool late summer night in Massachusetts. My walk was just over a mile, making a large circle around the neighborhood. About halfway into it, I heard a car's engine revving behind me. It wasn't an aggressive noise. It sounded like a person driving through the neighborhood. I didn't pay it much mind. The noise grew closer, and just when I expected it to pass me by, I heard the sound of wheels

thumping up the curb. Managing a half turn, I saw the car's headlights closing in. I felt the engine's warmth as the vehicle hit me, breaking my left leg at the knee as it folded under the bumper and then under the front right wheel. Had it been a sedan, I probably would have been hit off the hood and ended up with minor scratches and bruises. But it was an SUV, and the fact The fact that I managed to get the rest of my body out of the way was a bit of a miracle in itself. Even through the crisp yet hazy pain of my broken leg, I was aware of the vehicle moving back. Then suddenly it angled across the street, jumped the opposite curb, and ran into the front of a house, doing minimal damage because it had slowed considerably.

I had my cell phone on me, managing to call 911 and then my wife, who drove down in a panic to see me lying there at the edge of someone's lawn, my left leg bent at a gruesome angle. As it turned out, the man behind the wheel of the SUV hadn't taken his insulin that day and went into diabetic shock while driving home. His name was Jeffrey, and he visited me in the hospital two days before I died. He apologized profusely. At the time, I was angry with him. Now, I'm eternally grateful to him.

I know that what happened that night was meant to be, to show me my purpose in this life, and what a purpose it is. I know what you may be wondering. How did I die from a broken leg? After the surgery to repair my leg, I contracted MRSA, a type of staff infection. While not all MRSA infections are fatal, they can be under the right circumstances. But it wasn't even the infection that actually caused my death. While the doctors and hospital staff were trying to fight the infection that was threatening

to shut down my major organs, they inserted a breathing tube into my throat. But they did it wrong, and I began to choke, unable to breathe because the tube was improperly inserted. I went into cardiac arrest and died while they were trying to resuscitate me. I was officially dead for just under two minutes. But what I experienced in those two minutes felt like a lifetime. The things I saw were unimaginable by human standards. In fact, when they finally got my heart beating again and I was pulled back from the afterlife,

some of the experiences I had were diluted into a blur by my uncomprehending physical brain. But what remained was enough. I had been given a gift, a purpose, and a knowledge of the nature of life itself. and of death. And I knew that other people wouldn't understand. Not even my wife. Not my mother or my father. Not my friends from college. No one would get it. But that's okay. They don't need to. They will experience the joy I know soon enough. I was 25 when I died. Now I'm 61 years old. and the time is fast approaching. Everything I was shown in the afterlife has come true.

Everything. My first and only child was born a year after my accident. Lena, my daughter, has had a successful political career as I knew she would. She's the youngest female speaker of the House of Representatives in history at only 35. I couldn't be more proud. I doted on her, took her under my wing, groomed her for her career and her position and for the tasks to come. So tomorrow, when I set off the bomb that will kill the president and vice president as they drive past in their motorcade, Myelina will become

the president of the United States. Then she will help to bring about the vision that has been in my head for 36 years. She will help me unleash the greater power to ever exist, A power that has been locked away since a jealous god cast Lucifer down to the underworld. The skies will turn black, the earth will split itself open, and chaos will consume the populace as they murder each other in droves. Seas will boil, long dormant volcanoes will erupt, earthquakes will swallow entire cities. And when the population has been decimated,

there down to a few hundred thousand, His army will fly on leathery wings from the gaping holes in the earth, finally free to rule the world. And right there, by his side, I will sit. Lena will have to be sacrificed, sadly. She is simply a means to an end. But my life will be eternal. My youth restored, my rule never ending. I will sit next to him on his throne of bones and listen to the,

The screams of the unworthy, gazing out upon the black fields of tortured bodies. Because I am and always will be the chosen one. Lasagne sur-surellied, puissance-molyne, for 15 minutes. We're like it's their dojo. Pre-a-joo? Vive the pleasure with Leo Jo. The casino on-line that proposes the more recent machine-assin-sou and the

games of casino in direct. Profite of 50 tours gratu on Big Bas Bonanza, without exigance of misuse and with the payments instantane. We've got to win. Woohoo! Sonturee! 18 years, 1st, first depots only, Excluent in Ontario.

50 tours gratis on the machine a soup and base Bonanza. Depos minimum of $10. Veye to play in a fashion responsible. The conditions apply. That's a lot of blood. I say, squatting on the bare concrete floor

next to the pool of hemoglobin. That is a lot of blood. Terry, my partner of seven years, says from behind me. The apartment building's manager stands in the doorway off to our left, fiddling with his wedding On the opposite edge of the pool of blood, there are smudge marks and footprints.

There's a blood-coated towel sitting against the concrete wall in the room's corner that used to be white. Two barred windows near the ceiling lead to the sidewalk outside, letting a limited amount of natural light into the dank and copper-smelling room. A bare incandescent light bulb hanging from the ceiling directly over the blood adds to the dream. adds to the dreary feel of the place. Even without the pool of blood, it would not be a pleasant room. Looks like someone took a shower in blood here in the middle of the floor, I say. Then turn to look at the building's manager. You have blood in the pipes here?

He looks at me with wide eyes. Taking the question seriously, he doesn't get the joke. Cop humor. I wave a dismissive hand at him. How much blood is in the human body? I ask Terry. In an adult human, about a gallon and a half, he says. Of course, I already know that.

But this is the way we work cases. It's a give and take, a rhythm that helps us think and puzzle out the crime. Does this look like more than a gallon and a half to you? I ask. Oh yeah, Richter. It sure does. I'm thinking three bodies worth, maybe four, I say, standing up. But that means whoever drained those three bodies was either doing a particularly messy exchange transfusion or had help.

I see footsteps, but no drag marks. Lots of different footsteps, Terry says. He's right. Several different sets, which means multiple perps. You say you never saw anyone down here in the last couple of days? Terry asks the manager. No. Like I said, I was down here yesterday and this room was clear.

It floods sometimes, so I keep it clear in case it rains. Then I come down here today and find all this blood. You got a backdoor that leads to the basement, I ask. Yes, he says. Follow me. We walk out of the room, leaving the pool of blood to its own devices. The basement is mostly used for storage. Unfurnished rooms filled with dusty boxes, old furniture, bikes missing one or both wheels. The only things that look like they've been used recently

are the tools placed haphazardly around. I kick a screwdriver out of the way as we walk. The manager glances back at me. Hey, don't touch my shit, look on his face. Terry picks up on it. Nice place you got here, my partner says, stepping over the power cord to a circular saw. The manager ignores him.

We come to a short set of concrete stairs leading up to a door. The manager steps up as if he's going to open the door. Don't do that, I say. You might smudge someone else's prints. He stops. I move past him, pulling a latex glove onto my right hand. I push the door open and step out into the alley beyond. I don't see anything that rings alarm bells,

just the normal stuff you'd find in any low-rent apartment alley. The door closes behind me, but Terry stays on the other side of it. it, in case it won't open from my side, but it does. Is this supposed to be locked from the outside? I asked, the manager. He nods. Might want to fix that, Terry says.

You've got the tools. The CSI team arrives, and we give them the rundown, test the blood, dust for prints, eliminate the manager's prints, and so on. Terry and I exit through the alley door, as it's closer to our car, and also because we want to a good look at it. Neither of us think we'll be lucky enough to find a body lying under rubbish, but we look anyway. Nothing. I know what you're thinking, I say to Terry as we step up to the car. You do? Damn, you're good, Richter. I didn't even think you knew about my first wife. I'm laughing on the inside, I say. You're thinking. No body, no crime. No shit, Terry says.

So while we wait for forensics to come back, let's see if we can get some patrol officers to check the usual spots, I say. See if we can find a head or an arm. Hell, I'd even settle for a leg. Terry nods and opens the passenger door, but his phone rings before he can get in. I can tell by how he answers it and his tone that it's his wife, who's slowly dying of leukemia.

I get into the driver's seat and start up the car, giving him some privacy. He opens his door and gets into the car after a few minutes. Once he's settled, I drive away without a word. Having learned long ago that asking him how she's doing only makes things worse, silence is better, for both of us. Days pass, and our focus goes to other cases, ones with actual bodies. We wait to hear back from forensics,

at which point we'll be able to determine how we should proceed with the case. but before the guys in the lab can get back to us, we get a call from a patrolman, heading out in response to a 911 call. You guys had that case with all the blood and no bodies, right? The patrolman says over the phone. That's right. What do you got? I'm answering a 911 call that sounds similar.

The caller said that she was passing by this old abandoned church and heard some strange sounds. Anyway, she looked inside one of the windows and saw a group of people standing around, watching a woman in a big puddle of blood who was apparently bleeding out. Sounds promising, I say. What's the address?

We'll head there now. And for Christ's sake, don't do anything until we get there. I hang up once he tells me the address. Terry, who had been listening to my side of the conversation, is already pulling on his suit jacket as I hang up. The church is fairly close, and morning rush hour is over. So we get there in just over ten minutes.

We see the cruiser parked up on a side road flanking the disused church. I pull up alongside, rolling down my window. You're the one that called me? Delamond. I asked the officer. Yeah, that was me, Richter. I've worked a couple of your crime scenes, he says. Well, you're about to work another one, I say. Then pull ahead and park in front of him.

The three of us meet on the sidewalk. Okay, I say, mainly talking to Delamond. We're going to take this nice and easy. None of that door-kicking shit you guys like so much. I want to get a glimpse in that window. Then we'll make the call about backup. This could just be some bullshit for all we know.

Terry nods, so does Delamond. I creep down the side of the church. Terry behind me, and Delamond behind him. Most of the windows have been papered over on the inside, but I see that the paper is peeling up the bottom of the window's corner. I hear the murmur of voices from inside, even before I get to the window. When I do, I look inside to see exactly what the 911 caller described. There's a group of about 15 people, a mix of men and women, standing in a wide circle around a puddle

of blood even bigger than the one in the apartment building's basement. Instead of a woman in the middle of the puddle, there is a young man. He's completely still. and I can see the wounds slashed up both of his wrists. The blood coming out of them is only a slow trickle. He's already dead. I'm quickly calculating our odds against 15 people, looking for evidence of weapons. If the caller saw a woman, then there's at least two victims.

But by the look of the blood, I'm guessing there are several more that have already died by exonquination. While my thoughts are racing, I'm still looking through the window. And just when I'm about to stand up and talk to Terry and Delamond, the dead man moves. A twitch, I could understand, a convulsion, a fluttering of the eyelids. Dead bodies move in all sorts of ways. But they do not sit up, open their eyes, and look around with big smiles.

And that's just what the man does. At first I thought this was some kind of sick cosplay thing. Fake blood, horny weirdos who get off on death, special effects make up. But a look at the man's wounds tell me this isn't so. The gashes are deep. There are no practical effects that can do that. The man stands up, sending ripples through the large puddle of blood. The rest of the people raise their hands as if an evangelical fit.

Their voices undulate, making noises that shouldn't be possible from human throats. I back away from the window, stand up, and turn around. Terry immediately sees the look on my face and knows something's wrong. What is it? He asks. What did you see? I shake my head. I don't know. I turned to Delamond.

You can kick the shit out of the door now. We go around to the front of the church. Delamon tries the door before kicking it, finding that it's unlocked. We run into the church, weapons out, and shout at the group of people gathered in the empty. space. They all turn to look at us, even the young man with the slit wrists who has just stepped out of the pool of blood. They put their hands up like we ask, and make no moves. Many of them have the same strange look on their faces. It reminds me of how addicts look when they're

doped to the gills. Three of them just look scared, but the others don't. They show no fear. I noticed that several of the people's backs are coated in drying blood, as if they're They'd been lying in the blood recently. Delamond, I say. Find us some bodies, would you? Search the whole place. A man dressed in a tailored suit with slicked black hair and a fulpine smile steps forward from the circle, hands still raised.

You won't find any bodies, sir, he says to me. We've committed no crimes here, aside from trespassing, of course. I see a large cooler in the corner of the room. What's in the cooler? I ask him. Freedom. He says. Salvation. True sight. Don't be an asshole. I say. Terry, check the cooler, would you? I assure you, the man says.

It's nothing illegal. I covered the group while Terry moves to the gooler. He opens the lid carefully and then flinches back when he sees what's inside. What is it? I call to him. thinking it'll be body parts. I don't know, Terry says, staring into the container. Black dirt with bugs in it? It's moving, whatever it is.

There is no name for it, the man in the suit says. Delamond comes back in from checking the rest of the church. Nothing, he says. We've moved beyond death, officer. The man in the suit says to me, We can see the nature of things, and it is beautiful. It is beautiful, the other people say in unison. It sends chills up my spine.

Terry moves toward the group of people looking at their arms. He beckons to the young man with the fresh blood on his back. The young man steps forward. Terry gets up close and inspects the wounds on his arms. You should be dead, he says. How are you not dead? We are beyond death, the man in the suit says. What?

You're zombies? Tell me how it works. Terry says. Do zombies walk around, talking to people? Do they experience life in a way that the living never can? Do they see infinite joy in every speck of dust? Every rock, every leaf? I'm listening.

Terry says. Terry, what are you doing? I ask, an edge in my voice. There's no crime here, he says to me. If they're telling the truth, there's no crime here. Last I checked, suicide is no longer against the law in this country. It's simple, the suited man says. You consume some of that.

He points at the cooler. And then you kill yourself. It doesn't take long to come back. And when you do, he trails off. But he holds his arms out wide and spins around, as if gesturing to the whole world. You've all done this? Terry asks. Many of the people nod and smile.

But there are a couple of them, the frightened-looking ones, that do not. You've interrupted us before all our members could finish, the man in the suit says. And where does this stuff come from? Terry asks, gesturing at the cooler. I don't know. All I know is that it was passed on to me, and I'll pass it on to as many people who want it. It never runs out.

Somehow, it keeps appearing. You blink and the container is full again. This is just the beginning, don't you understand? We can all live like this. We can all see the beauty. You're not really buying this shit, you, Terry? I ask. Look at their arms, Terry says. Look at their fucking arms. What if this can save Alice? What if it can save my wife? This isn't right, I say, unable to think of anything else.

I look over at Delamond, but his expression tells me he's buying into this thing too. Take some to her, the man in the suit says. There are cups in the cooler. It doesn't take much. Two mouthfuls will do it. But she must kill herself immediately after ingesting it. We've found that the wrists are the best way. The inner thighs work too if you cut deep enough. It really does work. One woman from the group says, lowering her arms.

I can't explain how amazing it is. How special. It's how I always wished life would be. Terry looks over at me. I'm taking some to her. I'll at least give her the option. If you won't stand by me with this, I'll do it myself. This is crazy, I say.

You don't know if this guy is telling the truth? She could just die. She's already fucking dying. Fine, fine, I say. You're right. Terry scooped some of the strange, squirming black stuff out of the cooler in a red Dixie Cup. Get their information, I say to Delamond. But don't let anyone kill themselves while you're here.

The words sound so strange to my ears, but I'm out of loss. This all seems so wrong, but there's really nothing I can do about it. I think about calling my captain. But what if it is real? What if it really does work? If I got the brass involved, this stuff would be taken away, sold to the highest bidder. Regular people like this would never be able to get it. It would be a tool of the rich.

I grab a cup of the stuff for lab analysis before we leave the church, heading to the car. As usual, I drive. I keep going over and over it in my head as we head to the hospice care center, where Terry's wife has been living. Terry screams at me, noticing the truck veering into our lane just a second before I do. But it's too late. The head-on collision is chaos. All I hear is the shattering of glass, grinding with metal, and screeching with tires. We come to rest, crushed inside the mangled car.

It's hard for me to breathe, and blood keeps pouring into my eyes. I try to lift my right arm, but the pain is too great. Something sharp is sticking into my chest. I look over at Terry, immediately seeing that his skull has been split open. The haze of death envelops me slowly, giving me enough time to think about what might have been. I think of Terry's wife, dying slowly in a hospice bed, and suddenly I know that it would have worked. She could have lived. We could have lived.